Molazzana

Molazzana lies in the Garfagnana at 474 metres, and almost all of its territory falls within the Apuan Alps park. The mountains above it form the outline that people here call the Omo morto, the dead man, a giant lying on his back whose highest point is the Pania della Croce; right beneath the nose of that profile the Alpine Club has placed the Rossi refuge. The name of the village, they say, comes from Mola Aziana, the mill of a certain Azio, though some prefer to trace it to a Roman estate.

The castle you can see from far off belonged to the Este family, before Molazzana passed to Massa and finally to Lucca. For centuries it was the centre of everything, because the church, built before the seventeenth century, and the cemetery both stood on its summit: people climbed up there to christen, to pray and to bury, and the village revolved around that climb until the early nineteen-hundreds. Today the castle yard is a park from which the whole valley and the Apennines opposite can be taken in, and the fortress with its three towers has stayed in the coat of arms, on a blue field, blue being the colour of the Guelphs.